LANSING — Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Schuette is likely spooked by a recent poll showing him deadlocked with Democratic candidate Gretchen Whitmer and is "going negative" as a result, former Michigan Gov. James Blanchard said today.

Blanchard endorsed Whitmer today in a letter to activists and community leaders, one day after Schuette, Michigan's attorney general, officially kicked off his campaign for governor at a barbecue and fund-raiser in Midland.

At the event at the Midland County Fairgrounds, Schuette raised the prospect of Michigan returning to the "lost decade" of much of the 2000s, when the country suffered from a lengthy recession that hit Michigan especially hard. Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm was in office for much of that time, from 2003 through 2010.

"Jennifer Granholm's lieutenants want to take back control of our state," Schuette told several hundred people in attendance Tuesday, without naming Whitmer or any other Democratic candidate for governor.

"The Granholm team wants to take us back to the lost decade."

Whitmer, an East Lansing attorney who recently served a stint at interim Ingham County prosecutor, was Senate minority leader from 2011 through 2014 — after Granholm left office — but served in the House and Senate while Granholm was governor.

Blanchard, in a telephone interview with the Free Press, said the comparison is misplaced.

He said Granholm "oftentimes gets a bum rap," but "I see Gretchen as a real positive force," and "a much more unique individual" than Granholm.

"She can bring a new spirit, a new energy to the job," Blanchard said.

Blanchard said Schuette, a veteran Michigan politician who has held his current office since 2011, is "going negative" because of a recent poll by EPIC-MRA of Lansing that showed Schuette and Whitmer tied with 37% support each.

"When you have someone like Gretchen who is not that well-known ... running even with someone who is really well-known," that is worrying, and "I think that's why he's gone negative," Blanchard said.

Schuette hit back swiftly through spokeswoman Bridget Bush.

"Jobs disappeared under Jennifer Granholm and the person she turned to for her economic policies was Gretchen Whitmer," Bush said in an e-mail. "Now Whitmer is standing with a millionaire Washington, D.C. lobbyist, more proof Michigan is at risk of returning to the Lost Decade if we aren't careful."

Blanchard was governor from 1983 through 1990. He also served in Congress from 1975 through 1982 and as U.S. Ambassador to Canada from 1993 to 1996.

He is now a senior partner with the DLA Piper law firm in Washington, D.C, where he formerly chaired the firm's government affairs practice group. Blanchard said he has not lobbied for five or six years and is no longer registered as a lobbyist.

Though she served with the minority party in the Legislature, Blanchard described Whitmer as a "state legislator who produced results," citing her role in Michigan's expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act to cover about 640,000 additional citizens.

In addition to Whitmer, declared candidates in the Democratic race for governor are: Bill Cobbs, a retired Xerox executive from Farmington Hills; Abdul El-Sayed, the former director of the Detroit health department; Justin Giroux, a restaurant worker from Wayland; Ann Arbor businessman Shri Thanedar; and Kentiel White, a health care worker from Southgate.